Is the Berlusconi verdict a cause for celebration?

ExclusiveAugust 2013, by Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

Following Berlusconi’s condemnation to a four-year prison sentence for crimes related to tax fraud and evasion last week, Italian politics is in a frenzy. Immediately after the verdict was announced, groups of Berlusconi’s opponents gathered in the streets of several cities to celebrate what they hoped would be the end of his political career; at the same time many of the most important exponents of the institutional Left expressed their satisfaction that the judicial system has been allowed to follow its course. In the international press too, the event was widely reported as a victory, as if the strange ‘anomaly’ that has bedeviled Italian politics for over two decades had finally been brought under control.

But is there really a reason for Berlusconi’s opponents to celebrate? Several considerations suggest not. First of all, even juridically, it is not quite clear what the consequences will be. Quite apart from the fact that he will certainly not spend any time in jail (but rather be confined to house arrest) because of statutory age limitations, the original five-year interdiction from public office has been sent back to the Appeals Court to be reduced — and will in any case have to be approved by the Senate’s immunities commission before it becomes effective. Moreover, it is unclear whether a law banning individuals convicted for terms of over two years from standing in elections will apply to Berlusconi’s case, because of a partial amnesty bill passed by the center-left coalition government in 2006, which automatically reduces his sentence by three years.

In any case, Berlusconi himself has already declared that he does not intend to abandon the political scene and will continue his struggle will all the means available to him. On the night of the verdict, he broadcast a video-message that may give us a taste of how he intends to remain in touch with his electorate from house arrest. In it, Berlusconi denounced his trial as a political plot, and called upon his supporters to rally against it. Since then, several public demonstrations have been organized across the country to oppose what is portrayed as an unacceptable interference of the judiciary with the people’s sovereign right to elect their representatives.

In the very short term, there is a chance this will have an effect on the incumbent executive, which rests on a fragile coalition between the center-left Democratic Party and Berlusconi’s own People for Freedom Party. Berlusconi has already declared that unless a sweeping reform of the justice system is put on the table, his party will withdraw from the coalition, forcing anticipated elections. If that happens, given the internal divisions within the Democratic Party, it seems very likely that Berlusconi — or whoever stands in his place — would do very well. For rather than disaffecting his electorate, this verdict has galvanized it, confirming Berlusconi’s claim of a conspiracy against him, flying in the face of the people’s will.

So, paradoxically, this verdict could end up playing in Berlusconi’s hands, allowing him to present himself as a victim, as well as a tribune of the people, against the evil and oppressive machinery of the state. In addition, the potentially serious institutional crisis that could emerge from a standoff between the judiciary and the legislative branches of government allows Berlusconi to suggest that his exclusion from the political scene would b a factor of destabilization.

More broadly, the current scenario should make us reflect on a longer-term feature of Italian politics, which underscores the present crisis: the temptation — especially by some parts of the Italian left — to hope for a juridical solution to political problems. Since the beginning of Berlusconi’s political career this has been his opponents’ principal argument: he is a ‘crook’ and therefore unfit for public office. Unfortunately, even though this argument has scored some political points and led to partial electoral victories, it has often seemed to be a subsitute for a more substantive political project.

As a result, Italy’s political debate for the past twenty years has been almost entirely around the figure of Berlusconi: his past, his business, his crimes, his defects and even his sexual life were the principal objects of contention. Since this effectively makes him co-extensive with the political field itself, is it surprising the man keeps winning elections?

Even before Berlusconi’s rise to power, the limitations of the attempt to solve political problems through judicial means should have been apparent to the Italian left. Between 1992 and 1993, a massive judicial operation, Mani Pulite (‘Clean Hands’), investigated and ended up charging a large part of the Italian political class for crimes related mostly to corruption. This led to a collapse of all the previously existing political parties, marking the end of what is now referred to as the ‘First’ Italian Republic.

In the absence of any concrete political project to fill the void thereby created, what emerged was not a renewed and better political system but Berlusconi, who at the time presented himself as political ‘outsider’, unstained by all the corruption and capable of fixing Italy’s problem thanks to his entrepreneurial and managerial skills.

What is now referred to as the phenomenon of ‘anti-politics’ (with reference to the rise of figures such as Beppe Grillo and his ‘5-Star’ movement) is therefore not new: Berlusconi himself rode this wave in the aftermath of the ‘Clean Hands’ operation, and it eventually brought him to power.

The operation failed to result in the hoped-for political transformation. There are structural reasons for this (related to the nature of the institutions), which suggest something similar could happen this time: the judiciary is, by definition, only concerned with particular instances and individual actions, while politics should be about the formulation of general projects for the benefit of the collectivity. One cannot be the means of the other.

This is not to say the Italian judiciary should not have pursued Berlusconi for his crimes. The penal system cannot make exceptions for important politicians, and an independent judiciary is an essential component of a functioning democracy. However, the principle cuts both ways, which means that it is a mistake for politics to expect the judiciary to do its work for it.

If the Berlusconi ‘anomaly’ is to be overcome, it will have to be through the ballot box, not a juridical verdict. And this requires his opponents coming up with a concrete political project, one capable of mobilizing Italians around something more than just opposing Berlusconi himself.

Even if Berlusconi’s troubles with the penal system end up sidelining him from the political scene, he may simply be replaced by a similar figure. There are a number of candidates ready to do that, not only within Berlusconi’s own political party: Beppe Grillo is the first that comes to mind, but some parts of the left have for some time been toying with the idea of rallying behind the young, charismatic Matteo Renzi, whom Berlusconi once declared he would be willing to vote for himself.

A statement on Beppe Grillo’s blog immediately after the Berlusconi verdict assumes an ominous significance: “Berlusconi is dead! Long live Berlusconi!” Whether or not Grillo meant to refer to himself as a potential heir to Berlusconi, it gives all the more reason to think that, until Italians learn to get rid of aspiring kings for themselves, they will go on living in their shadows.